Sunday, December 31, 2006
What's The Big Deal?
Does Tie Domi know about this?
We thought ALL the Maple Leafs were gay.
Love,
Bruins Nation
- Hard-Nosed League Sends a Message of Acceptance
By Selena Roberts
In a decision small, but not insignificant, the N.H.L. and the Toronto Maple Leafs have delivered a fissure to a homophobic culture of sports, becoming the first major pro league and team known to lend its logos to a movie with a homosexual theme.
Currently in production, "Breakfast With Scot" is the story of a gay former Leafs player who, with his partner, becomes the guardian of an 11-year-old boy described as a "prepubescent Quentin Crisp" in the original reviews on the book by the same title.
The screenplay -- one of a hundred the National Hockey League receives each week for its approval -- was reviewed last year by league officials from communications, club services and production.
Simply put, they liked the script. And once the Maple Leafs gave the O.K., too, the project was given the green light.
We thought ALL the Maple Leafs were gay.
Love,
Bruins Nation
Friday, December 29, 2006
Person of the Year: Natalie Maines
Being one of the oldest political blogs on the Net comes with its responsibilities, none of which we take seriously. But this year we've interrupted our holiday drinking to recognize our Person of the Year.
Our choice is not an obvious one. She's not a politician, a business leader, or an educator. She doesn't cure disease, clothe or feed the poor (well, maybe she does, who knows?), and she didn't expose the meanness and shallowness of the President to an entire nation.
But Natalie Maines did something precious few Americans did: she spoke up, then stuck to her guns:
Instead we got more of the same sort of disingenuous toadying that allowed a small group of delusional ideologues and pathological liars to lead the country into a disastrous, unnecessary war, and hurtling towards financial ruin.
In other words, one little slip of a girl has more heart and more stones than the entire mainstream news media. And for that, Natalie Maines is 201k's Person of the Year for 2006.
Our choice is not an obvious one. She's not a politician, a business leader, or an educator. She doesn't cure disease, clothe or feed the poor (well, maybe she does, who knows?), and she didn't expose the meanness and shallowness of the President to an entire nation.
But Natalie Maines did something precious few Americans did: she spoke up, then stuck to her guns:
- Now that she's truly notorious, having told a London audience in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas," Maines has one regret: the apology she offered George W. Bush at the onset of her infamy. "I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President," says Maines. "But I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
"If people are going to ask me to apologize based on who I am," says Maines, "I don't know what to do about that. I can't change who I am."
As proof, the first single from the Dixie Chicks' new album, Taking the Long Way (out May 23), is called Not Ready to Make Nice. It is, as one country radio programmer says, "a four-minute f___-you to the format and our listeners. I like the Chicks, and I won't play it."
...it's tough to deny that by gambling their careers, three Texas women have the biggest balls in American music.
Instead we got more of the same sort of disingenuous toadying that allowed a small group of delusional ideologues and pathological liars to lead the country into a disastrous, unnecessary war, and hurtling towards financial ruin.
In other words, one little slip of a girl has more heart and more stones than the entire mainstream news media. And for that, Natalie Maines is 201k's Person of the Year for 2006.
New Feature
201k has added headlines from the New York Times to our left-hand index. We did this because a) we do read the the Times, daily, and b) it's free.
No, it doesn't mean we're on the take from the Times, or will be any less critical of them when the occasion arises. However -- and we want to stress this -- we are available to be on the take, if anyone from the Times happens to be reading.
In the meantime, expect the same attitude around here.
No, it doesn't mean we're on the take from the Times, or will be any less critical of them when the occasion arises. However -- and we want to stress this -- we are available to be on the take, if anyone from the Times happens to be reading.
In the meantime, expect the same attitude around here.
Spinwellianism Running Rampant
Poor Reader Beth sent this gem:
- WH: bin Laden Capture "A Success That Hasn't Occured Yet"
By Justin Rood - December 29, 2006
Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large -- but that's not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:
HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.
TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The Last Decent Republican President
We enjoyed this Adam Clymer piece on Gerald R. Ford.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
That Holiday Spirit
Overheard -- really -- at the Bruins game last night:
First drunken young guy: "What's that you're drinking?"
Second drunken young guy: "It's a 'Seven & Seven'."
First one: "What's in a 'Seven & Seven'?"
(Pause) Second one: "It's, uh...like gin and ginger ale, I think."
(Pause) First one: "Oh. So, it's like, uh, a gin and tonic?"
(Long pause) Second one: "Yeah. Yeah, gin and tonic."
Near the end of the third period the second one tumbled off his seat, falling into the row in front of him. As the game was ending he and his friends (and their girlfriends) were in an argument with the usher and the EMTs as to whether he would go to the infirmary and be evaluated or else sign a waiver saying he was unhurt.
Memo to young people everywhere: if you think a "Seven & Seven" is a gin and tonic, it's a sign that you really shouldn't be drinking one.
Happy Hollandaise from 201k
First drunken young guy: "What's that you're drinking?"
Second drunken young guy: "It's a 'Seven & Seven'."
First one: "What's in a 'Seven & Seven'?"
(Pause) Second one: "It's, uh...like gin and ginger ale, I think."
(Pause) First one: "Oh. So, it's like, uh, a gin and tonic?"
(Long pause) Second one: "Yeah. Yeah, gin and tonic."
Near the end of the third period the second one tumbled off his seat, falling into the row in front of him. As the game was ending he and his friends (and their girlfriends) were in an argument with the usher and the EMTs as to whether he would go to the infirmary and be evaluated or else sign a waiver saying he was unhurt.
Memo to young people everywhere: if you think a "Seven & Seven" is a gin and tonic, it's a sign that you really shouldn't be drinking one.
Happy Hollandaise from 201k
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Happy Holidays
Not sure we'll post again before the New Year. If not, Happy Holidays from 201k.
In the meantime, read Paul Krugman's interesting suggestion that Democrats shouldn't reduce the deficit (!) -- because Republicans will just steal the money again if they do.
Hmm...
In the meantime, read Paul Krugman's interesting suggestion that Democrats shouldn't reduce the deficit (!) -- because Republicans will just steal the money again if they do.
Hmm...
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
A World We Like
Monday, December 18, 2006
A World Gone Mad
Holy Jumping Catfish.
Have you seen this?:
What's worse, according to the Times -- and confirmed by our own look through Kearny's online forum -- plenty of people in town support the teacher, and are villifying Matthew LaClair. In fact, if it were not for LaClair, no one would even know about it; it turns out that this teacher has been doing this for years.
Let's be clear about this: Matthew LaClair is an American hero. Having the guts and the wits to tape-record this bully of a teacher -- a man who has been using his position as a history teacher to preach his divisive religious views to a captive audience of high school students -- was an outstanding act of patriotism and courage. Outstanding.
201k salutes Matthew LaClair of Kearny, NJ.
Have you seen this?:
Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights
By TINA KELLEY
KEARNY, N.J. -- Before David Paszkiewicz got to teach his accelerated 11th-grade history class about the United States Constitution this fall, he was accused of violating it.
Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.
"If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong," Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. "He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he's saying, 'Please, accept me, believe.' If you reject that, you belong in hell."
The student, Matthew LaClair, said that he felt uncomfortable with Mr. Paszkiewicz's statements in the first week, and taped eight classes starting Sept. 13 out of fear that officials would not believe the teacher had made the comments.
What's worse, according to the Times -- and confirmed by our own look through Kearny's online forum -- plenty of people in town support the teacher, and are villifying Matthew LaClair. In fact, if it were not for LaClair, no one would even know about it; it turns out that this teacher has been doing this for years.
Let's be clear about this: Matthew LaClair is an American hero. Having the guts and the wits to tape-record this bully of a teacher -- a man who has been using his position as a history teacher to preach his divisive religious views to a captive audience of high school students -- was an outstanding act of patriotism and courage. Outstanding.
201k salutes Matthew LaClair of Kearny, NJ.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Victory is Ours
201k and Maureen Dowd are on the same page:
In any event, as has been pointed out across the web, what Bush is inching towards isn't "doubling down" -- that's what you do when you're ahead. This new gambit is "double or nothing". That's when you're losing and buy another hand or roll of the dice by offering to double your loss.
They should be corrected on their misnomer. Americans need to see the word "nothing" in there -- it'll help ease the shock down the line.
- The Democrats thought that when they had won the election, they won the debate on the war and they had W. cornered. But the president is leaning toward surging over the Democrats, voters, Baker and the Bush 41 crowd and some of his own commanders.
W. seems gratified by the idea that rather than having his ears boxed by his father's best friend, he's going to go down swinging, or double down, in the metaphor du jour, on his macho bet in Iraq. He's reading about Harry Truman and casting himself as a feisty Truman, but he's heading toward late L.B.J. The White House budget office is studying how much it will cost to finance The Surge, an infusion of 20,000 to 50,000 troops into Baghdad to make one last try at "victory."
In any event, as has been pointed out across the web, what Bush is inching towards isn't "doubling down" -- that's what you do when you're ahead. This new gambit is "double or nothing". That's when you're losing and buy another hand or roll of the dice by offering to double your loss.
They should be corrected on their misnomer. Americans need to see the word "nothing" in there -- it'll help ease the shock down the line.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Don't Kid Yourself
Anyone who believes that reality -- in Iraq or in the voting booth -- will deter the Bush Administration from its goals in Iraq (whatever they may be) is sadly misunderestimating him and his advisors.
They have no intention of "changing course" in the way that the majority of Americans expect them to.
What they've decided, up there in the Imperial Palace, is that Rumsfeld blew the execution of the war -- not that the policy itself was wrong. So they dumped him, and will send more troops.
He's going to ramp it up, folks, not down. As longs as he's physically and legally able, he will press this war forward, escalating it as necessary.
And if somewhere along the line a Democratic Congress stops him, he and his gang will slink back to the right-wing think tanks from which they came, to write white papers on "how the Democrats changed course and cost us Iraq".
Sound familiar? Bet on it.
They have no intention of "changing course" in the way that the majority of Americans expect them to.
What they've decided, up there in the Imperial Palace, is that Rumsfeld blew the execution of the war -- not that the policy itself was wrong. So they dumped him, and will send more troops.
He's going to ramp it up, folks, not down. As longs as he's physically and legally able, he will press this war forward, escalating it as necessary.
And if somewhere along the line a Democratic Congress stops him, he and his gang will slink back to the right-wing think tanks from which they came, to write white papers on "how the Democrats changed course and cost us Iraq".
Sound familiar? Bet on it.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Red Sox Sign Daisuke Matsuzaka
Translation: "Yankees Suck."
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Soy Boys
You learn something new every day.
By this logic they should be writhing on the ground, humping the carpet in a perpetual soy-induced state of heat for big, strong, masculine hunks like Jim Rutz.
- Soy is making kids 'gay'
December 12, 2006
By Jim Rutz
There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it's a "health food," one of our most popular.
The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.
I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.
Estrogens are female hormones. If you're a woman, you're flooding your system with a substance it can't handle in surplus. If you're a man, you're suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your "female side," physically and mentally.
Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.
By this logic they should be writhing on the ground, humping the carpet in a perpetual soy-induced state of heat for big, strong, masculine hunks like Jim Rutz.
Donald Rumsfeld's Untimely Epiphany.
Donald Rumsfeld, December 7, 2006:
- Q: "With what you know now, what might you have done differently in Iraq?"
Rumsfeld: "I don't think I would have called it the 'war on terror.' I don't mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word 'war' conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn't going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a 'war on terror.' Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and, [through] a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control. So 'war on terror' is a problem for me."
- In defeating the governments of Germany and Japan, the United States had defeated the enemy it was fighting--end of story.
That isn't the case in the "War on Terror". This war is being fought against an amorphous entity that exists within and apart from the governments of any country. The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 aren't a government, they aren't financed through government taxes, and they don't have factories, roads, and buildings to bomb.
Defeating the government of Iraq (or Iran, or Pakistan, or even Afghanistan, if you can call the Taliban a government) won't stop the terrorists. It ends those governments, no question, but it doesn't defeat the terrorists. In fact in many ways it aids them.
The terrorists are groups of individuals. They're financed by individuals. Destroying the governments of the countries in which they operate will no more stop their functioning than it would stop a religion.
How to fight a war against millions of individuals is the essential question the Bush administration has failed to grasp. Declaring "war" on an abstract noun -- in this case "terror" -- may make for great soundbites, but bombing it turns out to be problematic. Ultimately you end up bombing places you think it may be hiding near, but that tends to create more problems than it solves -- especially for the innocent people who happen to live in the vicinity.
What you end up with is a global game of "whack-a-mole", the carnival game in which no matter how hard you swing at the mole, it disappears while another one pops up somewhere else. You can turn around and shoot the carnival owner, of course, but then you have to contend with his family. Do you shoot them, too? Then what?
Welcome to "whack-a-mole".
The hard answer, of course, and one that makes for very poor soundbites, is that it's impossible to stop individual acts of terror, especially through conventional warfare. You can no more bomb away "terror" than you can bomb away "sin" or "ugliness" or "murder".
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
A thought:
Saying that evolution is a religion is like saying that going to a toy store means you believe in Santa Claus.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Kate, Mavourneen
- Winslet Slams 'Ultra-Thin' Glamorization
December 10,2006 | LONDON -- Hollywood star Kate Winslet finds the glamorization of ultra-thin "size zero" models and actresses "unbelievably disturbing" and says she keeps magazines featuring such women away from her 6-year-old daughter.
"It's so disturbing because young girls are impressionable from 11 up to 19 or 20 even. Women are very impressionable at those ages," Winslet told British Broadcasting Corp. television's "Sunday AM" program.
"They're trying to figure out who they are, and they want to be loved, and what I resent is that there is an image of perfection that is getting thinner and thinner, and it's truly upsetting to me."
Who's behind this weird trend, anyway? Are there really people out there who are attracted to skeletal women? Frankly, they give us the willies.
Aren't women supposed to look like, you know, women?
Happy Holidays
201k will be on a reduced schedule until after the new year. Postings will be sporadic, and possibly even whimsical.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
What?
Just a random juxtaposition...really...
No link for the first one (Times "Select").
No link for the first one (Times "Select").
- January 18, 2000
Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss
By ERICA GOODE
There are many incompetent people in the world. Dr. David A. Dunning is haunted by the fear he might be one of them.
Dr. Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, worries about this because, according to his research, most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent.
On the contrary. People who do things badly, Dr. Dunning has found in studies conducted with a graduate student, Justin Kruger, are usually supremely confident of their abilities -- more confident, in fact, than people who do things well.
One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.
The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
''Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it,'' wrote Dr. Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Dunning.
In a series of studies, Dr. Kruger and Dr. Dunning tested their theory of incompetence. They found that subjects who scored in the lowest quartile on tests of logic, English grammar and humor were also the most likely to ''grossly overestimate'' how well they had performed.
Unlike their unskilled counterparts, the most able subjects in the study, Dr. Kruger and Dr. Dunning found, were likely to underestimate their own competence.
When high scoring subjects were asked to ''grade'' the grammar tests of their peers, however, they quickly revised their evaluations of their own performance. In contrast, the self-assessments of those who scored badly themselves were unaffected by the experience of grading others; some subjects even further inflated their estimates of their own abilities.
''Incompetent individuals were less able to recognize competence in others,'' the researchers concluded.
The findings, the psychologists said, support Thomas Jefferson's assertion that ''he who knows best knows how little he knows.''
...Dr. Dunning said his current research and past studies indicated that there were many reasons why people would tend to overestimate their competency, and not be aware of it.
In some cases, Dr. Dunning pointed out, an awareness of one's own inability is inevitable: ''In a golf game, when your ball is heading into the woods, you know you're incompetent,'' he said.
But in other situations, feedback is absent, or at least more ambiguous; even a humorless joke, for example, is likely to be met with polite laughter. And faced with incompetence, social norms prevent most people from blurting out ''You stink!'' -- truthful though this assessment may be.
- Bush's certainty rallies the faithful
by Walter Shapiro
COLUMBUS -- Like a Broadway show racing through its last out-of-town tryout on its way to New York, George W. Bush swooped into Columbus on Wednesday afternoon for a final stump speech before he plays Madison Square Garden. Little that the president said was new or provided fresh clues about the shape of his convention address Thursday night. But watching Bush among committed Main Street Republicans underscored the nature of his political appeal. The Columbus rally for Bush had an aggressive, conservative tenor that has not been visible at most convention events.
The rally in Columbus was a chance to ponder a question that seems obvious and yet a bit elusive: What, in political terms, is Bushism? For all the flag-waving comparisons to Ronald Reagan, there is a different tenor to the president's conservatism. And yet unlike the zigzag administration of George H.W. Bush and the cynical pragmatism of Richard Nixon, this President Bush does not fit the mold of other Republican presidents.
This is not the moment to review the governing record of the president or to muse on Bush's often amnesiac approach to his 2000 campaign pledge to be "a uniter not a divider." Rather the goal is to try to understand the rapturous enthusiasm that Bush, the political leader, inspires among the faithful.
The central appeal of Bushism is the president's unwavering (and his critics would say unreflective) certainty. Time and again, Bush asserts as he did in Columbus, "America will continue to lead the world with confidence and moral clarity." The president also used the line, "If America shows uncertainty or weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy."
This steadfast resolve, rarely accompanied by visible second thoughts, resonates with voters who regard nuanced complexity as synonymous with dithering inaction. It is the moralism that Bush radiated back when he routinely described al-Qaeda as the "evil-doers." Bush speaks to the belief that we are a nation blessed with both liberty and a big-hearted idealism unique in human history.
Bush, even more than most candidates, avoids seeing contradictions. His longtime ties with Enron did not prevent him from declaring in Michigan, "It is now clear that we will not tolerate dishonesty in the boardrooms of America." The same unapologetic style prompts Bush to shy away from any extended discussion of the faulty intelligence that convinced him that Saddam Hussein possessed a fearsome arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. As he did in Columbus, Bush repeatedly depicts the decision to invade Iraq as a stark choice to either "accept the word of a madman" or "defend America."
What Bush offers is a curious amalgam of moral clarity and political pragmatism, all delivered with the oratorical passion of a true believer.
God Helps Those Who Help White Republicans
In case you thought government was an equal-opportunity waster -- think again.
FEMA overpaid Katrina victims...in Plano, Texas.
Plano, Texas:
- Audit Says FEMA Squandering Katrina Aid
By HOPE YEN Associated Press Writer
December 06,2006 | WASHINGTON -- One year after Katrina, the government is still squandering tens of millions of dollars in wasted disaster aid, including $17 million in bogus rental payments to people who had already received free trailers and apartments, federal investigators said Wednesday.
- The GAO audit found that numerous aid applicants received duplicate rental aid, with FEMA in one case providing free apartments to 10 people in Plano, Texas, while sending them $46,000 to cover out-of-pocket housing expenses.
FEMA overpaid Katrina victims...in Plano, Texas.
Plano, Texas:
- White persons, percent, 2000 78.3% (Texas average = 71.0%)
Black or African American persons, percent, 2000 5.0% (Texas average = 11.5%)
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin, percent, 2000 10.1% (Texas average = 32.0%)
Median household income, 1999 $78,722 (Texas average = $39,927)
Per capita money income, 1999 $36,514 (Texas average = $19,617)
Persons below poverty, percent, 1999 4.3% (Texas average = 15.4%)
- Plano was the highest income place with a population of 130,000 or more in 2000.
Plano is also located in Collin County, the richest county in Texas and part of the richest 1% of counties in the United States. The four wealthy zip codes of Plano that contribute to the county's affluence are (in descending order of median household income/year): 75093, 75024, 75025, and 75094. Plano was ranked the richest city in the United States with the lowest poverty rate of 6.3% for a city with a population exceeding 250, 000.
AIKMAN, RHONDA MRS PLANO,TX 75093 3/22/2004 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, RHONDA MRS PLANO,TX 75093 HOMEMAKER 8/14/2003 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, RHONDA MRS PLANO,TX 75093 HOMEMAKER 3/2/2004 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, RHONDA MRS PLANO,TX 75093 HOMEMAKER 3/22/2004 ($2,000) Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 FOX SPORTS 3/22/2004 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 FOX SPORTS/BROADCASTER 8/14/2003 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 FOX SPORTS/BROADCASTER 3/2/2004 $2,000 Bush, George W.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 8/7/2003 $1,000 Republican National Cmte.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 7/21/2005 $1,000 Republican National Cmte.
AIKMAN, TROY K MR PLANO,TX 75093 FOX SPORTS/BROADCASTER 3/22/2004 ($2,000) Bush, George W.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Great Apes Think Alike
Frank Rich is thinking along the same lines as 201k -- the brilliant bastard:
- You can understand why Jim Webb, the Virginia senator-elect with a son in Iraq, was tempted to slug the president at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress. Mr. Bush asked "How's your boy?" But when Mr. Webb replied, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq," the president refused to so much as acknowledge the subject. Maybe a timely slug would have woken him up.
If You Don't Have Anything Intelligent To Say...
Nicholas Kristof, the man who compared George Bush to Robert Kennedy, now compares the watchdogs that are barking at the anti-democratic religious forces intruding on America's freedom with the intruders themselves.
With all due respect, isn't it time the Times either held Mr. Kristof to some standard of intelligence -- or at least relevance -- or sent him on his way? It's bad enough to read punch-me-faced prep David Brooks turning unintentionally comic somersaults in his attempts to justify the failed policies and dogmas of the American Right; at least he has an agenda, wormy as it may be. Kristof seems only ever to be trying to define some gooey terrain where everyone is right...and nothing means anything.
Oh wait -- when it comes to watchdogs, Kristof does make a distinction...to exempt the press from his own logic:
With all due respect, isn't it time the Times either held Mr. Kristof to some standard of intelligence -- or at least relevance -- or sent him on his way? It's bad enough to read punch-me-faced prep David Brooks turning unintentionally comic somersaults in his attempts to justify the failed policies and dogmas of the American Right; at least he has an agenda, wormy as it may be. Kristof seems only ever to be trying to define some gooey terrain where everyone is right...and nothing means anything.
Oh wait -- when it comes to watchdogs, Kristof does make a distinction...to exempt the press from his own logic:
- So be very wary of Mr. Bush's effort to tame the press. Watchdogs can be mean, dumb and obnoxious, but it would be even more dangerous to trade them in for lap dogs.
